Facing the Inevitable

Success is often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable. ~ Coco Chanel

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. ~ John F. Kennedy

President Kennedy said that those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable. I would say that the converse is true. ~ Jacqueline Novogratz

So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable. ~ Christopher Reeve

Failure at some point in your life is inevitable, but giving up is unforgivable. ~ Joe Biden

In order to govern, the question is not to follow out a more or less valid theory but to build with whatever materials are at hand. The inevitable must be accepted and turned to advantage. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

On rare occasions one does hear of a miraculous case of a married couple falling in love after marriage, but on close examination it will be found that it is a mere adjustment to the inevitable. ~ Emma Goldman

They say death and taxes are the only things that are inevitable. The truth is, you can not pay your taxes. I’ve done it, and there’s consequences, but it can be done. Death you’re not going to get out of, and you kind of got to deal with it. ~ Steve Earle

You know, I’ve never actually really believed that death is inevitable. I just think it’s a rumor. ~ David Carradine

Change is inevitable. Change for the better is a full-time job. ~ Adlai E. Stevenson

The mark of a good action is that it appears inevitable in retrospect. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. He is the hero, he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor, by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world. ~ Rebecca Harding Davis

At least half the mystery novels published violate the law that the solution, once revealed, must seem to be inevitable. ~ Raymond Chandler

If you believe, as the Greeks did, that man is at the mercy of the gods, then you write tragedy. The end is inevitable from the beginning. But if you believe that man can solve his own problems and is at nobody’s mercy, then you will probably write melodrama. ~ Lillian Hellman

Making the solution seem so completely inevitable and obvious, so uncontrived and natural – it’s so hard! ~ Jonathan Ive

Most quarrels are inevitable at the time; incredible afterwards. ~ E. M. Forster

The inevitable has always found me ready and hopeful. ~ Amelia Barr

There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat. ~ James Russell Lowell

Loneliness is and always has been the central and inevitable experience of every man. ~ Thomas Wolfe

Scientists – who prefer explanations subject to laboratory tests – figure that everything we see today was as inevitable as wrinkles, once the Big Bang established physics. Stars and planets were cooked up as huge clouds of matter collapsed and coalesced. ~ Seth Shostak

Indeed it is possible to stand with one foot on the inevitable ‘banana peel’ of life with both eyes peering into the Great Beyond, and still be happy, comfortable, and serene – if we will even so much as smile. ~ Douglas Fairbanks

Nothing is inevitable until it happens. ~ A. J. P. Taylor

The art of statesmanship is to foresee the inevitable and to expedite its occurrence. ~ Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

One must choose between Obscurity with Efficiency, and Fame with its inevitable collateral of Bluff. ~ William McFee

Virtue knows that it is impossible to get on without compromise, and tunes herself, as it were, a trifle sharp to allow for an inevitable fall in playing. ~ Samuel Butler

Genius worship is the inevitable sign of an uncreative age. ~ Clive Bell

The moving hand once having writ moves on. Nor all thy piety nor wit can lure it back to cancel half a line. ~ Omar Khayyam, Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

The historian’s job is to aggrandize, promoting accident to inevitability and innocuous circumstance to portent. ~ Peter Conrad

There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening. ~ Marshall McLuhan

About This Site

This site offers a daily column on current events, and unlike other blogs, in long form. Short posts pointing to this and that and saying "Oh my!" seems a bit lazy. Columns here are an attempt to think things through. If you'd like to come along for the ride, fine. If you have neither the time nor patience for that, that is also fine - you can click on the LINKS tab at the top of the page and visit the sites that offer quick hits. Those provide the raw material for the analyses here.

The views here are mine alone, save for the occasional column from Ric in Paris or comments from key readers, like Rick, the News Guy in Atlanta, and others.

Commentary and guest columns are posted here, but there is a sister site, Just Above Sunset Photography, where images are far more important than words. That site is updated daily. Take a look.

JUST ABOVE SUNSET has been online, in various formats, since May 2003. Click on the ABOUT tab at the top of the page for more on that, and a note on who I am.